Clinton: Gaddafi’s threats against Europe won’t deter NATO

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brushed aside retaliatory threats against Europe by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. She said Saturday that NATO would continue its campaign in Libya.

"Instead of issuing threats, he should be putting the well-being and interests of his own people first," she said during a trip to Spain Saturday, the Associated Press reports. "He should step down from power."

(More from GlobalPost: African Union refuses to arrest Gaddafi)

Speaking by telephone, Gaddafi told a large government rally in Tripoli Friday that if NATO forces did not end their attacks on Libya, European "homes, offices and families" would become legitimate targets.

NATO forces have been operating a miltiary campaign of air strikes against Gaddafi's forces for months. They are working under a U.N. mandate to use force to protect Libyan civilians.

Clinton stressed Saturday in Madrid that NATO's mission is on track, and Gaddafi must step down. She said NATO forces will "continue exerting the same military and political pressure … to protect Libyan citizens from the threat and the use of military violence by Col. Gaddafi."

She spoke alongside Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez, AP reports.

Gaddafi's message was played to tens of thousands of supporters gathered in Tripoli's Green Square, the BBC reports.

"These people [the Libyans] are able to one day take this battle … to Europe, to target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate military targets, like you have targeted our homes," he reportedly said. "If we decide to, we are able to move to Europe like locusts, like bees. We advise you to retreat before you are dealt a disaster."

Gaddafi's threat comes days after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for him, his son Saif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi on charges of crimes against humanity.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that Gaddafi and his two top aides bear the greatest responsibility for “widespread and systematic attacks” on unarmed Libyan civilians, and he accused Gaddafi of ordering his forces to gun down civilians in their homes, at funerals and outside mosques.

He said the court had evidence that Gaddafi had personally ordered attacks on civilians, and that he was behind the arrest and torture of his political opponents.

But in a meeting Friday, the African Union decided that its members should not carry out the arrest warrant.

Gaddafi's threat also comes after France admitting sending weapons and munitions to Libyan rebels. French armed forces spokesman Thierry Burkhard reportedly told Reuters that France initially dropped humanitarian goods but as the situation worsened and civilians could not defend themselves, France also dropped light weapons and munitions.